Thursdays at the Handwerker: Roundtable Discussion on Running the Numbers

03/31/2008

Contributed by Cheryl Kramer

At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 3, the Handwerker Gallery will present a roundtable discussion on the exhibition, Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, featuring Steve Skopik (Department of Cinema, Photography, and Media Arts); Susan Allen-Gil (Department of Biology); Paige Davis '08; and JJ Ignotz '08.

In his large-format photographs, Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan explores contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image documents a specific quantity of goods consumed by Americans in a given time frame: Cell Phones, 2007, depicts 426,000 of them, equal to the number of cell phones retired every day; Paper Bags, 2007, depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used every hour; and Plastic Bottles, 2007, depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used every five minutes. These photographs give the cold, hard facts of American consumption a tangible reality.

Each discussant will respond to the work on display, and this will be followed by a discussion with the audience.

Running the Numbers is cosponsored by the Roy H. Park School of Communications, the Department of Biology, the environmental studies program, and the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival. For further information, contact Cheryl Kramer, Handwerker Gallery director and assistant professor of art history, at 607-274-3018.